Shorter Notice
How the Russians Live. By Wright Miller. (Fabian Society. 6d.)
WAR correspondents have to be facile in impressions and reactions as well as in style, and must necessarily be detached, but as the spate of their books grows, the public who lap them up may begin to wonder whether there is anything they lack and to question sometimes the balance they hold between events: between torture, starvation, homelessness, for instance, and th2 reporter's discomfort, his cold in the head, lack of bath water or regular meals—a sense of proportion which used to have curious manifestations in the visits paid to other peoples' wars in China and in Spain. But Mrs. Haldane, war correspondent of the Daily Sketch, is put off her sardines and cheese for breakfast by the sight of the peasant :amily killed by blast, and succeeds, in general, in telling us as much about the Russians as about herself. How the Russians Live is an admirable little book, informative and intelligently written. A table that it gives of comparative values explains morc about the Soviet system than dozens of treatises or eye-witness accounts by friend and foe. For instance, it was possible in 1939 with 150 roubles to buy a cheap watch, a poor quality summer dress, a twelve-clay holiday in a Rest Camp, an aeroplane trip of nearly a thousand miles, or pay for a year's course at a University. It is a pity that the people who could learn most from this book will be put off it by seeing that it is Pamphlet 3 of the Socialist Propaganda Committee.
Previous page
